West Has Vital Interest in Egypt's Struggle

We should also remember how long it took us in the West to get it right. In Britain, some 150 years passed between the writings of Adam Smith and universal suffrage. Indeed, Britain abolished slavery a century or so before we gave women the vote. Given the choice, we were never willing to expand our electoral franchise when we believed it would undermine our social or economic stability. Just opening a history book should give us some idea of how long this takes. It is not possible to upload democracy, in an instant, to countries that have no tradition of it.